Currently, email clients such as MICROSOFT OUTLOOK and LOTUS NOTES enable a user to exchange electronic messages with other users through networked email servers. These email clients typically display to a user a list of messages that the user has received. If the user wants to view the full message, the user selects the message from the displayed list and the email client renders the selected message on the display device.
Many common email clients also enable a message author to mark the message with a priority attribute, such as “urgent,” before sending the message. Generally, these email clients also enable a message recipient to sort or group messages by attributes, including the priority attribute. U.S. Pat. No. 5,694,616 (issued Dec. 2, 1997), for instance, describes a system for sorting messages by comparison—if a new message does not contain a priority listing it will be displayed below any older messages that have been marked as “urgent” or the like. U.S. Patent Application No. US 2002/0120702 A1 (published Aug. 29, 2002), in contrast, describes a bidding process that determines the priority of messages. When sending a message, a user specifies the initial priority bid and a maximum priority bid. These bids represent some type of material value such as cash. Upon delivery, the recipient's email client displays the contents of the inbox in accordance with the current priority bid amount. When a new message has a higher initial bid than another message's current bid, the older message's amount is increased to a higher level than the new message. The new message also can raise its bid level in an attempt to become the highest priority of the sender. The data processing system automatically performs these calculations and allows senders to bid on their message's priority listing.
As described above, current systems allow a message author to send the message with a certain level of priority. The novelty of simply marking a message as “urgent,” however, has worn off as more and more users classify their messages as one of the highest priority. A major problem with this new over-prioritization occurs when a sender has a number of related questions or tasks, in which some have a higher priority than others.
Of course, the author manually could split the questions or tasks into separate messages according to priority. This technique, though, increases the author's preparation time and, potentially, overwhelms the recipient with incoming messages. Alternatively, the author could prepare a single message with detailed instructions to the recipient that indicate each item's priority and deadline. Again, though, this technique increases the author's preparation time, as well as the potential for mistake, ambiguity, or confusion within the instructions themselves. Such messages also are likely to be much longer than the original message, which might discourage the recipient from reading the entire message. In the worst case scenario, the recipient might begin responding without ever reading the instructions.
Clearly, existing techniques have significant drawbacks, and there is a need in the art for a more effective means of prioritizing and processing specific items within an email message. The invention described in detail below addresses this need. This and other objects of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention.